Federal Skilled Worker- The Settlement Funds

Section R76 (1) contains various selection criteria established by the authorities. In addition to meeting these criteria, the applicant would need to have sufficient funds available for supporting the applicant’s settlement in Canada. This is in accordance with the provisions specified under R76 (1) (b) (i).

Under one specification, the applicants do not necessarily need to have settlement funds if they:

Have the relevant authorisation for working in Canada and,

Have received points for arranged employment in Canada (refer to Appendix B)

The authorities have provided further clarification on this point under:

R82 (1)

R82 (2) (a)

R82 (2) (b) or,

R82 (2) (d)

This is in accordance with the provisions specified under R76 (1) (b) (ii).

In addition, the applicants would need to ensure that the funds:

Are available and transferable

Are unencumbered by debts or other obligations and,

Are sufficient for supporting initial establishment of the applicants in Canada

It is worth mentioning here that the authorities determine sufficient funds according the size of the applicant’s family (refer to Appendix C). Typically, they include both accompanying and non-accompanying dependents in their calculations. They generally use 50 percent of the current Low Income Cut Off (LICO) for urban areas that have a population of 500,000 or more.

In some situations, the applicants might not be able to demonstrate that they have sufficient funds for meeting the prescribed requirements. In this scenario, the authorities would have no other option other than refusing the application.

Applicants would typically need to meet the requirement and criteria for settlement funds at the time of: